I'm trying to do a text-based install using virt-install 0.400-3 on a
ubuntu server 9.10 but it is refusing to install. Here is the form of
the command I'm using:
$ sudo -s
# virt-install -n "DOMAIN-1" --vcpus=4 --ram=2048 --disk
path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/DOMAIN-1.img

Argh, yes. I was wrong about that, --cdrom also expects a top level
distro
path. That should be fixed though, to just allow pointing to a cdrom
like you did.

So I nfs mounted the iso across the network and then passed the
mountpoint to --cdrom and this at least creates the domain but then it
just sits there at "Escape is ^]" and does not do anything else.
Is there something wrong with my console args?

If you boot off a cdrom, kernel args have no effect, since we have no
way to
pass them in to the cd. Extra args only work if you directly boot a
kernel.